July 18th

Wednesday

I did observation today at the school, which consisted of me sitting in a tiny booth, on a stool, surrounded by a two-way mirror. Therefore, I could see the kids and the teachers, but they couldn't see me. At first, it was cool because I could see people check themselves out in the mirror, but after a while my butt got tired of the hard stool and I did a lot of strecthing and knuckle-cracking to keep me awake. I witnessed Nicholas, Brittany, Alex, Alejandro, and Camilla, kids with autism, go absolutely fucking nuts with their respective teachers. It was Visitors Day, which meant bring-in-your-pet-day, so Camilla kept crying, "I want cat! I want cat!" because someone brought in a cat. Brittany, who is mute, signed furiously to her teacher, intermittedly making little whimpering noises. But Nicholas took the cake. The teacher would have to literally hold him down while she placed cards on the table, saying, "Nicholas, show me the ball. Show me the ball, Nicholas. Nicholas, where's the ball? I bet you can't find the ball. Good, Nicholas! What do you want? You want toy? To-oy. Nicholas, where's the shirt? Where's the shirt Nicholas?" And on and on it went.

At 11:30 I was starving, so I sneaked into my lunch bag and chomped on a bologna and mustard sandwich while I continued to watch, bleary-eyed. Finally, convinced they'd forgotten about me, I came out at noon and told the head teacher I was leaving. She thanked me for coming and informed me she'd "keep in touch"-- apparently there are three people competing for the job. Grreat. I left, slightly dejected, slightly relieved, went home and napped for the next few hours, trying to make up sleep. And here I am. So, this job may not be in the bag, but after today, that might not be so bad.